CD Reviews

Decade

Bjorn Viberg | European Union | 06/21/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Decade is a compilation album that was first released in 1977 as a 3 record set and is now released as a 2 CD compilation. Here we get 35 tracks worth of music and the album was hailed by critics when it was released and Allmusic and Robert Chritgau gave the album top marks and I agree with this. All the tracks have been compiled by Young himself and we get handwritten notes on each track. The booklet does not have any of the lyrics but does have unsigned liner notes and some nice photographs from the time that this compilation was released. 5/5."

The Best of the Best of's

Philip Bradshaw | toronto canada | 07/04/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Generally speaking I'm not much of a fan of compilation/best of/greatest hits albums. Amazon.com has a list of "Best Greatest Hits CD's from Great Bands". The upper echelon includes CDs from Zep, Floyd, Rush, Queen, Stones, Beatles, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, The Who and Hendrix. Quite frankly, aside from the Beatles, who rarely included their 45 rpm hits on their LPs, I'd rather listen to the CDs that include the hits than listen to the hits, one after the other, on a best of compilation. Having said this I must now admit that Decade is one sensational double CD. I suppose, strictly speaking, it isn't a greatest hits package at all. It is simply Young's personal selection of six sides of songs recorded between 1966 and 1976. However I would guess that most would still call this Neil Young's greatest hits, volume 1. After all, it does include all of the obvious - The Loner, Cinnamon Girl, Down by the River, Cowgirl, Southern Man, Helpless, Ohio, Heart of Gold and my favourite Young song, Cortez the Killer. The first CD of the two is breath-taking - the unreleased Down to the Wire followed by fifteen monumentally great, recognizable songs. Disc two is a little different. While some tracks are well known, many are what we now call" rarities". And, finally, I do have to add this - I love A Man Needs a Maid.

At last count I had twenty-three Neil Young records and CDs. I guess you'd call me a fan! I play Everybody, Zuma, Weld, Rust/Live Rust, Gold Rush and Harvest the most. Just recently I pulled out all of the others for a listen and discovered that I should have been playing On the Beach, Freedom and Ragged Glory a little more often. This man has one mighty impressive discography, and its growing! Notwithstanding the fact that I have just about all of these songs on other records and CDs and not withstanding the lousy sound, when I put Decade on the player it stays there until the last sung has run its course. When I compile my list of my favourite 100 or 150 or 200 albums (I've been working on my list of top songs for several years now) Decade will undoubtedly be one of the very few compilations on the list and will certainly find itself in the top 50.